Rent
by NorthernTrash-x
Summary: Ichigo/Hichigo. It was sick, it was wrong, but as long as no one knew, then what did that matter?


An expanded drabble from one of my collections. This isn't actually a pairing I ship, in particular, but I got the idea in my head and very much enjoyed writing it. The idea was originally a request by 3R15UKOUM31, so thank you to her. :)

Ichigo x Hichigo

**Rent**

_And still I stick with this, I'm sick of this_  
><em>But in my sickness and addiction<em>  
><em>You are addictive as they come,<em>  
><em>Vindictive as they make 'em<em>

Ichigo Kurosaki was not a normal kid.

He'd figured that much out, and you'd be pretty hard pressed to argue against it. Just to begin with, normal kids were not bright ginger when they were Japanese.

Normal sixteen year olds did not have to fight great battles against men of incredible power and evil. They did not know girls who looked younger than him but were actually older than him- hundreds of years older than him. They didn't have to wield zanpakuto, steel blades from their fists clenched in anger; their friends were not kidnapped and captured and threatened with death. They did not have to deal with _death,_ full stop. Normal kids are not able to see ghosts, and normal kids didn't have to wake up in the night to the sound of a monster screaming his rage in the far distance. They didn't have friends on the other side of death, either, and did not jump between the two states as easily as one dancing from one side of a room to another. Sixteen year old boys didn't carry the weight of the future of the world on the shoulders, and did not have quite so many scars as he did littering his body toned by war and training. They did not speak to their swords inside their heads, and they didn't have to look themselves in the mirror each morning and say, 'today I'm not going to think of people dying'.

Most of all, though, normal sixteen year old boys did not have a death-white double of himself living inside the inner landscape of his mind. And even if they did, they _really_ wouldn't have such a twisted relationship with them.

In that sense, even if you were to ignore all the rest, he was entirely unique.

His inner hollow lived inside his body like a lodger that you wouldn't want to remember: the sort that snuck in and squatted when you weren't looking and who wrecked the place, routinely breaking through walls and stripping down the colours that hid the plasterwork. The sort of lodger that fucked you right off, that threw the bricks he ripped out from walls at you when you tried to get in the house.

He took advantage of Ichigo's hospitality in all ways, taking up more room than he deserved, and although Ichigo borrowed its unwholesome but significant powers on occasion, overall he didn't get all that much out of it.

Really, he it would have been preferable to do it all alone.

Ichigo had unpleasant memories of those moments of communications, those moments when he was forced to call that black and painful power rent when he turned to the hollow in battle, as if that was all that he demanded from the colourless creature whose eyes always seemed so angry, whose voice was always laced with a callous disregard and irritation. Ichigo could call it what he wanted, but they both knew that the power was not the real rent that Ichigo was charging for the use of his body.

The real rent, that real charge that should have been standard but really wasn't, was sick.

It was twisted.

It always ended up being extremely pleasurable, even if he was a little sore the next day.

That painfully pale exterior hid a burning black fire of irrational anger and hatred. He was monochrome delirious, he hurt to look at. It was terrifying, but it was also beautiful, as if he were in the middle of a ritual dance, the sort with bones and blood and whirling shadows. Ichigo wondered if he was narcissistic, sometimes, for that chest-clamping lust that made him feel as if he were imploding. He was fucking a mirror, after all, even if it was a black and white inverted one with a pretty sadistic sense of humour.

When he looked in a real mirror he could see those eerie, yellowed eyes staring back at him, through his own, which was decidedly unnerving when you were brushing your teeth and your sister was washing her face next to you.

It was strange, fucking in your own mind, with a creature that was nothing more than a spiritual embodiment of an evil force that living inside of you. Not to mention that it was as confusing as hell, but at the end of the day, when it felt that good… He shouldn't complain. He couldn't complain, he supposed, he wasn't being forced in any way. At least it was convenient for them both: there was no love between them, not really, and it was all about gratification and it could have been a lot worse, really- at least there wasn't the constant question of 'if he's going to call or not', was there?

The hollow demanded when he was restless, Ichigo demanded at the end of a hard day, and both were always willing to comply.

Was it wrong? Probably most people would consider it sick, most of his friends would be disgusted by him. If the Vizards knew, they would shun him, think him corrupt no doubt. His father would worry, Urahara would start experimentation. He didn't know, for sure, what he thought about it all- some days he woke up and saw how fucked up it was, how fucking strange, but at the end of the day, he didn't want to stop.

He could have forced himself to ignore those urges, could have convinced himself that is was sick enough to deprive himself of those pleasures, but did it matter too much, when no one else would ever know?

He did not know what Zangetsu thought of it, but all the old man ever did was acknowledge that them accepting each other was what he had always wanted. And then he had looked away, as if there was more to say, but he did not know how to do it; or else, he simply did not want to. With Ichigo's experience of the spirit's wisdom and logic, he had a feeling that it was the latter of the two.

But acceptance, Zangetsu claimed?

Ichigo didn't know if 'acceptance' really meant those times when they left scratches down each other backs, those times when bites made bruises and hips thrust upwards, jutting and without regard to the painful clash of angular hipbones.

It felt too good to ignore. The sort of rent that he would deny in an instant, but always took.

And if he felt the tugging in the back of his mind that meant that the hollow wanted his attention all he had to do was close his eyes and lean back in his bed and reach his hands down the front of his jeans to stroke himself into a hardness that would translate to his mental-self, in ways he could not explain or understand, and when he got there his hollow was waiting, would always be waiting, with that grin wide and predatorily smirking.

Teeth pointed, tongue slick.

His eyes felt like they could burn him, but his touch held all the lucid and unnerving qualities of water. Water that could drown you.

Death in warm embraces; death in the depth of kisses.

The hollow would always crook a finger to him, beckoning him closer.

Stark naked, an unearthly white.

"First of the month, King. Wanna collect your rent?"

_I'm addicted to the pain,_  
><em>The stress, the drama<em>  
><em>I'm drawn to shit<em>  
><em>So I guess, I'm a mess,<em>  
><em><strong>Cursed and blessed<br>**_- Eminem


End file.
